


we'll meet again when both our cars collide

by Princex_N



Category: John Wick (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Conversations, Death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Movie: John Wick: Chapter 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:13:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28485900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princex_N/pseuds/Princex_N
Summary: "Your wife would want you to throw your life away so easily?"This makes him smile wryly. "I think she would have wanted me to keep on living," he agrees, but there's a glint in his eyes that could almost be humor as he continues, "but I would have said the same to her. We don't always get what we want."
Relationships: Gianna D'Antonio & John Wick, Past Helen Wick/John Wick - Relationship
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	we'll meet again when both our cars collide

**Author's Note:**

> title from MCR's [helena](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCCyoocDxBA) because who could resist?

Gianna doesn't bother with things such as surprise when she spots the specter in the mirror behind her. Perhaps it _is_ more of a ghost than she was expecting, considering how long his 'retirement' has lasted, but there is no real shock to be found in the fact that _someone_ wanted her dead on this day. 

However, she will admit that she didn't quite expect John to be the one called to threaten her. 

Their faces are twin placid masks as they examine each other in the glass reflection, neither of them inexperienced enough to be surprised by these turns of events, both of them curious to see what the other will do. Gianna's mind churns as she takes him in, noting the differences in his appearance, the way he holds himself, considering her own dwindling options with vague disinterest. 

"There was a time not so long ago in which I considered us as friends," she tells him. She doesn't expect much to come of it, honestly - John had never marked himself as a particularly sentimental man. Though, the fact that she is not yet dead may speak to it more than she thought; perhaps retirement has changed him in more ways than one. 

"I still do," he replies, stalking around the walls of her bath, gun in hand. Finger off the trigger, she can't help but note. It's more allowance than most have been granted. 

"What brought you back?" she can't help but ask. She is well aware that she doesn't have many choices here, so she supposes she may as well sate her curiosity while she still can. 

"A marker," he tells her. His head tilts, almost animal in intensity as he looks her over, his hair coming loose from behind his ear as he does so. His expression could almost look like pity. "Your brother's." 

Gianna could nearly laugh, but there's almost nothing funny about it. Her brother _would_ , after all; he's always been such a little brat. And here she had been hoping that they could still find common ground to work together. 

There's no mirth to be found, but she can still nod knowingly at it all, jaw clenched tight. "Is it how you got out?" He inclines his head in answer - always so taciturn. "And what was her name? This woman whose life has ended my own?" 

This is where John continues to surprise her. _This_ is where the true shock of the night rests solidly. 

"Helen," he says, mouth almost fond around the syllables of the nearly ironically plain-sounding name, but there's a hole of exhaustion behind his eyes that doesn't seem to fade. Now that she's close enough to see it, she wonders how long it has rested there. It seems ancient. Gianna only heard the gossip about his wife a mere few weeks before. "Her life has ended nothing," he continues, closing the distance between them in a split second, his hand on hers before she can react, the gun passing from his hand to hers, the muzzle pressed under his jaw, nearly between blinks, "but my own." 

Gianna has counted herself too professional to stun for many years now, but John throws wrenches into these things seemingly without even meaning to. 

"Why?" she asks, the word practically startled out of her mouth. Not that her surprise gives her reason to pull the gun away from his skin. 

He shrugs around the muzzle, seemingly perfectly comfortable with the cool metal pressed against his flesh. "Consequences, I guess," he says nonsensically. At least this time he elaborates. "Your brother won't be the last to not take no for an answer. He burned down my house. All of her..." He sighs. "Even if he hadn't sent Ares to follow me tonight, there will be more like him." He shakes his head as well as he can with the restriction of the weapon against his mandible. "There's nothing left in me to burn, and I'd rather die at your hand than my own." 

She should pull the trigger right now. End things quickly before he has any time to reconsider this choice, but she doesn't. Call it sentimentality, call it curiosity. Gianna hesitates just a moment longer. 

"Your wife would want you to throw your life away so easily?" 

This makes him smile wryly. "I think she would have wanted me to keep on living," he agrees, but there's a glint in his eyes that could almost be humor as he continues, "but I would have said the same to her. We don't always get what we want." 

Well, she can hardly argue with that. 

Gianna would choose to die on her own terms if John had given her no other choice, but she'll snatch up the opportunity to live just as easily if he's laying down the cards to allow it to be so. She's never heard of anyone declining these few and far between offers before, and she won't break tradition so senselessly.

"Do you fear damnation, John?" she asks, mildly curious at the steady way he looks at her. She moves the gun only enough to press it to his temple instead of his throat. Be that for mercy, or perhaps something closer to poetry. 

He doesn't flinch as she settles the metal against the delicate bone there, tilting his head ever so slightly as if to grant her easier access. He only grins when she asks, "You don't fear never meeting her again?" 

There's a spark in his eyes that - despite their only brief reunion - Gianna had already worried was gone forever. It has been years since she'd seen any glimpse of it, after all, and these past weeks have not been kind to him if the rumor mill is to be believed. Like he's in on a joke no one else knows the punchline to, a secret only he holds. 

"For a bunch of people who never met her, everyone seems to be making assumptions about her lately." 

Gianna takes the implied rebuke with an incline of her head and a twitch of a grin - she'd almost missed John's bizarre way of interacting with the world. Quiet, sullen. Polite enough to make even the worst people almost begrudgingly like him. Powerful enough to never fear in insulting those who usually demanded respect from the people they considered beneath themselves. 

She waits to see if he will elaborate, speak any more to reveal this secret, but he doesn't. She doesn't do him the disservice of drawing things out for the sake of useless answers. John's life has always been a popular topic of gossip - there's no sense in stealing away what little privacy he may have left for himself and his wife. He just looks at her with those eyes that have always seemed all too warm to her, waiting patiently until the trigger is pulled. 

She does sit with him, after; his gun set plainly on the floor in front of them, his hand cradled between her own, cataloguing new scars and callouses she doesn't recognize from those skilled with handling weapons and wondering what they may be from. Allowing the blood pooling on her floor to stain and travel up the hem of her dress. A memento, or perhaps just a threat to all of those who will soon understand just what has happened on this night. 

This is quite a reputation to earn, after all. 

Cassian returns eventually, to take in the scene with widened eyes that only grow larger as he recognizes the face beneath the exposed bone and wet tissue. 

Gianna does not dwell in grief or regrets, hasn't since she was a very small child. Her tears have long since dried by the time Cassian's eyes find hers again, and she offers him only a small smile tempered equally by bite and amusement. 

"Spread the news," she says imperiously, tilting her head towards the cooling corpse beside her, as if he might have missed it. "The _Baba Yaga_ is dead." 

There is no sense in lingering after that, so Gianna doesn't bother. She heads back out into the celebration, back into life, into plans already spinning into motion. 

It doesn't take very long for her to spot Ares in the crowd. They've been in this family too long to be anything but recognizable, even if they have chosen to shackle their leash to a sinking vessel. Their loyalty could almost be commended if it wasn't mere stupidity in disguise. 

Their eyes tighten when they see Gianna alive, a bitter twist to their mouth that says perhaps they saw something like this coming. It fades to shock when they spot the blood, their startled eyes raising to meet Gianna's cool ones before they begin to vanish back into the crowd. 

Gianna has no intention of stopping them, yet. Let them warn her brother of the storm heading his way. It will not make a difference. 

She's sure that he will be _quite_ displeased with these turns of events. That the one man who could have halted the High Table in its tracks had chosen to die at Gianna's hand rather than continue on her brother's poorly thought out track. Besides, even if he hadn't, Gianna is certain that her brother's fate was sealed the moment he stepped foot in John's home. 

It is as John had said - Actions, _consequences._

And at least this way, Gianna can fully enjoy the aftermath. 

**Author's Note:**

> couldn't really decide if this is more 'john doesn't believe in heaven/hell afterlife' or 'helen wick has her own reasons for winding up in hell alongside him' but whatever lmao, you get to pick 
> 
> [my tumblr](https://www.princex-n.tumblr.com)


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